Posts Tagged '2010'

Summer season looks really good this time around. Of all the titles on the list, I'd put my bets on High School of the Dead (which is a no-brainer), Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Seikimatsu Occult Gakuen, and Tono to Issho. There's a few more continuations series like Sekirei and Strike Witches, but as far as the new stuff goes it's pretty good.

Looked a bit better than the Spring season anyway. There weren't too many shows that caught my eye that time around.

So if you only have time to watch one show this year, make it High School of the Dead. It's like a hybrid combination of 28 Days Later, George Romero, and Tenjo Tenge (just mindless sexualization e.g. boob shots).

Gigazine posted this huge wall of photo spreads from Japan's latest Wonder Festival, which happened last weekend. There were lots of good figurines all around! As per usual, all of Japan's hobby companies were on hand to showcase their new products for sale later this year.

One of the more anticipated figures (well, mine to be more precise) was the Senjougahara Hitagi models. There were several all over the place, although this one caught my eye the most. It seems to capture Senjougahara's stoic personality the best — not too demure, and not too "cutesy".

…I will have to hunt it down in the future when it becomes available.

There was another one that was meticulously detailed that might also become a future purchase, lol. The only thing that worries me is how fragile the overall sculpture is, due to all the tiny staplers, scissors, and knick knacks falling down.

There were a few other notables. The 1:1 scaled replicas of Archer's Kanshou and Bakuya were very beautiful! I think there were 1:1 scale replicas of Caliburn as well, but the link escapes me at the moment.

You can check out an index of the various distributor's pieces here. Note that the language is all in Japanese.

If you enjoyed Baccano!, then chances are you're definitely going to enjoy Durarara!!, Ryohgo Narita's spiritual successor to exclamation points.

The show is already receiving rave reviews online in North America and in Japan.

The show centers around young Ryugamine Mikado, a teenager who yearns to live in the big city. He transfers at his friend's behest, but is subsequently thrown into a mix of interesting people, a mysterious gang called "dollars" (literally), and a supernatural being known as the Headless Rider in Ikebukuro.

The pacing in the anime is wonderful. Just like the previous novel, Durarara!! uses an interesting, multiple person narrative mode that appears to change with each episode. The plot slowly unfolds with each new viewpoint, creating an interesting narrative that makes you want to go back and see the previous shows all over again. Did I mention Holo is in it too?

Aside from Durarara!!, another winter season anime worth noting is Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu. it's a light novel from Kenji Inoue that's about classes that fight against each other using their points from tests. Each class, from F to A, have drastically different living conditions — for example, the highest ranking class gets access to computers, free snacks, and air conditioners while the lowest has boxes for desks.

As for the rest of the winter anime season, I can't really recommend them (unless you're into really perverted loli stuff), but feel free to watch whatever you like. For me, it's only going to be about these two shows, and probably Katanagatari and that supposed Fate / Stay Night reproduction. Only time will tell!